By Larry Keller on December 1, 2009 - 12:05 pm, Posted in Anti-Immigrant

Think back to Jennifer Anniston’s distress when Brad Pitt dallied with Angelina Jolie; Debbie Reynolds’ angst when Eddie Fisher strayed with Elizabeth Taylor. Now meet the latest big-name heartbreaker: Lou Dobbs. No, he hasn’t left his wife. But some of his most ardent anti-immigration supporters at Americans for Legal Immigration PAC – ALIPAC — are feeling shock and betrayal like that of a cuckolded lover. Lou, they cry, has embraced the enemy, caught in flagrante delicto on the American Spanish-language television network, Telemundo, making nice to Hispanics and immigrants. And if you missed the program, why, there it is on YouTube. To some ALIPAC members, it was comparable to a far-right conservative discovering Ann Coulter in a steamy tryst with Bill Maher.

Dobbs, you recall, left CNN as abruptly as a ruler toppled in a coup on Nov. 11, after the SPLC and other organizations had persistently urged he be fired because of his repeated falsehoods about undocumented immigrants on his CNN show and on his radio program. One of the most infamous myths, in 2005, was that they were at least partly responsible for 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States in the prior three years. There actually were about 400 new cases, and nobody knew what role immigrants had in those numbers. The Columbia Journalism Review wrote that Dobbs was “tamper[ing] with facts” and David Leonhardt wrote in The New York Times that “Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality.”

Then Dobbs was interviewed on Telemundo’s Al Rojo Vivo on Nov. 20. He assured the Latino community that he is one of its “greatest friends” who has been falsely portrayed by the far left. He told interviewer Maria Celeste that “we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.” He added, “What isn’t working is a penalty to those who are in this country illegally for whom we can both be building a bridge to the future in which there is legalization and at the same time constructing an environment in which everyone is clear and unequivocal about the need for border security and a regulated flow of immigration.”( continue to full post… )

Turner, a neo-Nazi blogger and Internet radio host, is charged with threatening to assault and murder three federal judges in Chicago. Turner wrote on his blog that they “deserve to be killed” and posted their photographs, phone numbers, work address and room numbers. He was upset that the men — Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer — had upheld a federal handgun ban.

Turner’s defense will contend that Turner’s online statements were constitutionally protected speech. They’ve also announced their intention to delve into Turner’s history as a paid FBI informant to show that Turner had made similar threats previously — and authorities did not deem them criminal. The defense hopes to question New Jersey Gov.-elect Chris Christie about a letter declining to prosecute Turner that he may have issued as U.S. attorney.

If convicted, Turner faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. We will post updates as the trial unfolds in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

All but one of 35 suspects has been arrested by Denver police in connection with a string of racially motivated beatings and robberies in the Mile-High City. Those arrested are all black males, including some juveniles. Their alleged victims were white or Latino males.

Most of the suspects told police they are associated with either the Rollin’ 60s Crips gang or the Black Disciples gang. Their arrests this month followed a four-month investigation by a task force composed of Denver police, the district attorney’s office and the FBI into 26 assaults in the downtown Denver area. Typically, four or five black men would taunt their targets with racial epithets, trying to goad them into a fight, police said. Then the suspects would beat the victims, sometimes robbing them of their wallets, cell phones and iPods. Many of the victims suffered broken noses or eye sockets, Police Chief Gerry Whitman said. ( continue to full post… )

By Sonia Scherr on November 25, 2009 - 9:58 am, Posted in Anti-Abortion

Scott Roeder, who has confessed to the fatal shooting of a Kansas abortion provider, is fighting prosecutors’ attempts to ban the so-called necessity defense at his trial.

Roeders’ attorney filed a motion stating that Roeder should be allowed to argue that the killing was necessary to prevent Tiller from performing abortions, The Associated Press reported this week. The move was a surprise, because lead defense attorney Steve Osburn had said earlier this month that the necessity defense was not a viable option. At the time, Osburn was responding to Roeder’s statement to The Associated Press that he’d killed George Tiller and that he intended to use the necessity defense at his trial, scheduled for Jan.11. Osburn has not explained his apparent reversal.

The necessity defense is highly unlikely to succeed in Roeder’s case, according to two law professors who spoke to Hatewatch. “He may think this is his opportunity to explain why abortion is murder, but that’s not relevant,” said Michael Kaye, a professor of law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas. ( continue to full post… )

The FBI yesterday released its 2008 Hate Crime Statistics report. Overall, the numbers were up slightly, by 2 percent. One of the biggest jumps was in the number of anti-black hate crimes, which went up from 2,658 in 2007 to 2,876 in 2008. That constitutes a rise of nearly 8 percent.

The jump in anti-black hate crimes is likely related to the November 2008 election of President Obama. In the weeks before and after the election, dozens of hate crimes occurred across the country, the result of a racist backlash to the election of America’s first African-American president.

Hate incidents related to the election occurred in all parts of the country. An interracial couple in Apolacan Township, Pa., who supported Obama, found the remains of a burnt cross in their garden. In Madison County, Idaho, elementary school children allegedly chanted “assassinate Obama” on a school bus. In Mount Desert Island, Maine, black effigies were reportedly hung from nooses.

Many of the election-related hate crimes were violent. For example, there were five reported attacks by white supremacists on blacks and Latinos in California’s San Jacinto Valley that police described as a reaction to the election. And on Staten Island, two 18-year-olds were among a group of men who yelled “Obama” as they assaulted a black teenager with a baseball bat just hours after Obama clinched the presidency.

One of the most widely publicized incidents involved the burning of a black church, the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, just a few hours after Obama’s win was confirmed. At the time of the burning, federal investigators called the act a probable hate crime.

But like so many hate crimes each year, the church burning never made it into the FBI’s statistics. Even though the DOJ released a statement about arrests in the Springfield case and condemned the acts as motivated by “racism,” the city of Springfield reported no hate crimes in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Unfortunately, it is not surprising that a hate crime would fail to make it into the FBI’s data. The DOJ itself has found that the hate crimes statistics drastically underreport the number of such crimes each year. A definitive 2005 study by the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, based on detailed and highly accurate National Crime Victimization Surveys, found that the real level of hate crime in America was about 191,000 incidents per year — in other words, about 20 to 30 times higher than the numbers annually reported by the FBI.

A prominent member of a Canadian neo-Nazi group is wanted for attempted murder in connection with two bombings in Calgary.

Police announced Monday that they’re looking for 24-year-old Kyle Robert McKee, along with a 17-year-old who cannot be publicly identified under Canadian law because he’s considered a juvenile. Besides attempted murder, they both face charges of possessing, making or controlling explosives, and possession of a weapon or imitation for a dangerous purpose.

No one was hurt in the incident, which occurred on Saturday around 7:15 a.m. in northeast Calgary. After someone reported hearing gunshots, police found what appeared to be an improvised explosive devise (a homemade bomb, or IED) in a large parking lot between two apartment complexes. The IED had been detonated. A second IED that also had been detonated was discovered near the scene.

McKee, a slight man with a shaved head, has “Kill Jews” tattooed on his shins. He often acts as spokesman for the Aryan Guard, a racist gang whose “white pride” marches have caused a stir in Canada’s third-largest city. However, police say there’s no evidence that the bombings were hate crimes. “The victims in this case knew the offenders and share similar beliefs and values,” stated a news release from the City of Calgary.

Police haven’t released further details about a motive. However, former Aryan Guard member Tyler Sturrup identified himself as one of the victims on his Facebook page, according to Anti-Racist Canada, a blog that covers the Aryan Guard. Sturrup had left the group to help form the Western European Brotherhood (W.E.B.). W.E.B. participated in the Aryan Guard’s 2008 and 2009 marches through downtown Calgary to celebrate “white pride,” though recently there’d been friction between the two groups.

The Aryan Guard was founded in 2006 with help from the country’s two best known white supremacists, Paul Fromm of the Canadian Association for Free Expression, and National Socialist Party of Canada leader Terry Tremaine. Though the bombings apparently were not bias crimes, the Aryan Guard has been linked to several assaults on minorities, including the beating of a Japanese visitor in July 2008 by a 17-year-old group member. The group has roughly 20 full-fledged members, many of whom have criminal records, along with 20 to 30 associates.

So secretive is Holocaust denier David Irving that he often doesn’t reveal the locations of his lectures until hours before they’re scheduled to begin — and even then, he only tells vetted guests. It must have been a blow, therefore, when his private E-mails appeared on the Internet, courtesy of self-described anti-fascist hackers.

The E-mails, along with the username and password for Irving’s website and AOL E-mail account, were posted last week on WikiLeaks, a website that publishes leaked documents. The messages reveal that it’s not only anti-racists who clash with the long-winded Hitler apologist: Irving’s own assistant, a young blonde woman named Jaenelle Antas, berated him repeatedly for his churlishness.

In a Nov. 7 E-mail, for instance, Antas wrote that Irving recently had been “snotty, rude, and disrespectful toward me.” She also said she was thinking about quitting. “I don’t care if you are frustrated, angry, stressed out, tired, or whatever — treating anybody like the way you have been treating me is unacceptable,” she wrote. “I bend over backwards to help you out on this tour, doing jobs that last year you would have done yourself, and not just making bookings, but also doing things like driving, helping you secure funds to reprint books and locating second-hand books. The only thanks I usually get are long whines about how something isn’t exactly perfect. Why would anyone in the world want to work with or even be friends with someone who is acting the way you have been acting lately? You like to say you treat me better than anyone else does, but the truth is, lately you have treated me worse than anyone else ever has. It hurts my feelings, it makes me angry and resentful, and it makes me question whether or not I should be doing this job anymore.”

Antas was responding to earlier E-mails from Irving in which he accused her of neglecting her responsibilities and “knee-jerk retorting.” “As for your more unhelpful and hostile messages: ‘Get over it,’” Irving wrote on Nov. 7. “I have been working since 6 a.m. this morning trying to catch up and plug holes you have left, e.g., by not bothering to inform me the Sala Thai no longer exists.”

But Irving appears to have gotten over this negligence. In subsequent E-mails, he tries to make it up to Antas with some not-so-subtle sweet talk. “Darling J, you are so efficient and beautiful,” he wrote on Nov. 13. “Please work your magic on (a) attached list [of prospective attendees at his New Jersey talk] and (b) me.”

According to her Myspace page, Antas is a 24-year-old college graduate from Minnesota with a passion for singing. She also appears to have a passion for posting on Stormfront, the leading white supremacist forum. As Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Timesnoted on his blog, Antas likely comments there under the name “Tristania.” The photos Tristania posts are of Antas, and in September, Tristania posted the schedule for Irving’s U.S. speaking tour this fall. Tristania has posted more than 4,000 times since joining Stormfront in 2005.

Also published on WikiLeaks are lists of people who ordered tickets to Irving’s talks in Philadelphia, New York City and New Jersey, along with their addresses, phone numbers, and E-mails. People who might not be friendly to Irving, including those believed to be Jewish, are flagged with the German word “Achtung” (attention). “ACHTUNG is quarter-Jewish” appears below one listing. ( continue to full post… )

By Hatewatch Staff on November 17, 2009 - 11:31 am, Posted in Uncategorized

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has launched its 13th immigration and crime sweep and reported 27 arrests by Monday night. Officials say 18 of the people in custody are suspected of being illegal immigrants with the other nine arrested on various charges.Read full article

By Hatewatch Staff on November 17, 2009 - 11:25 am, Posted in Uncategorized

Wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan “Stop the Invasion” and applauding exhortations to “take back our country,” opponents of amnesty for illegal immigrants gathered at a Grange hall in Yakima.Read full article